different generation

Though speculations are all around, and the family is fighting for a thorough investigation, the version widely announced by the media to the public is that, the Indonesian 4th year undergraduate in NTU stabbed, slitted and jumped. No conclusion is made on the motive so far but again from the media, it's believed to be due to academic stress. Jusk a week later, a lab officer from the same laboratory, hung himself, with only 5 days being appointed the position.
Few weeks ago i read something interesting in a friend's blog. She was on a bus and kinda heard the conversation between the bus driver and a cleaner working on campus of NUS. The lady, working as a cleaner in NUS, is Johor-ian, who travels back and forth between Johor and Singapore everyday to work, earning less then 1K per month. The driver, a Singaporean, sounds better with 4 digits income. He has a family to feed and a HDB flat to pay, and he works 10 hours a day.
and just today i read another article found in the NUSSU's publication about, again cleaners in NUS. The author describes them as the "unsung heroes", meaning people who contribute a lot, but are unnoticed and unrecognized.
Sometimes when i carry the tray with dishes to the collection point after lunch or dinner at the faculty canteen and look at the cleaners, i tend to imagine if i were one of them, working as a cleaner everyday. I guess, everytime i imagine that, not only me but everyone at the canteen having their meals will feel the same. It's unbearable. All of us, will not choose that in our lives.
Then i thought again, having the capability to choose in that situation, is more than a luxury to them, the cleaners. To put it simple, they don't get to choose. It's very true that without them, NUS, with the massive amount of people utilizing the facilities everyday, would become very much like a public toilet in m'sia. They contribute, no doubt of that, but people like me, or like us, would just not go for it.
What actually differentiate people like us and them such that, a deliberate "NO" to us is a desperate "YES" to some of the extreme cases among them?I couldn't think of anything other than two simple, but pretty much neglected little things, a probably higher range of IQ, and luck.
i remember i asked a funny question to feng ee that i wonder, 20 years later perhaps, will i, as a father, told my son that "you're lucky to be born much later than me, during my time there weren't this there weren't that....", as what my father always tell me....well it'd be interesting if i really get to say that some time in the future, i can't imagine what the world will transform into 20 years later that makes me say that to the next generation...
many might argue that, it's pointless to compare with people of the past generation....well i can't stop them from complaining forever that their lives ain't good enough without this and that, and at the same time i can't deny that the fact that, different generation or not, we're all not so different actually, other than we're luckier....
ok i'm stressed, and i'm writing rubbish to de-stress.....